Subtle Love Tutorial

This tutorial was written by Amber Howard on August 22, 2015. Any resemblances to other tutorials are completely coincidental. Scripting and translating of this tutorial is forbidden. Do not copy and paste this tutorial anywhere else on the internet. Please link back to the main blog instead.

In this tutorial I used the artwork of PinupToons.

You can purchase this artwork and a license through CDO. 

Please do not use this or any scrap kit without purchasing first.

Supplies needed:
PaintShopPro — I used X7 but any version will work.
Tube of choice.
Scrap kit of choice — I used “Coffee Love” by MellieBeans.  
Font of choice — I used Lavanderia Regular.

Plugins needed:
Eye Candy 4 — Gradient Glow
Eye Candy 6 — Perspective Shadow
Lokas Artistic Effects — Cotton

Ready? Set? Go!

Open a paper of choice.

I used pp08 from the Coffee Love scrap kit.

Resize the paper to 600x600 pixels, all layers checked.

Open a new 600x250 canvas, flood fill white.

Copy and paste pp08 as a new layer.

Duplicate the paper layer.

Rename the original paper layer Background.

On the duplicate of the paper background,

Adjust – Blur – Gaussian Blur at 16.00.

Change the settings of this layer to Hard Light.

Rename this layer BG Blur.

Now, the next few steps of the tutorial are going

to be a lot of the same kinds of steps:

Duplicating, Mirroring, Flipping, Resizing, and Shadowing.

Here’s where you have the opportunity to really make

this forum tag your own!

Here we go!

Copy and paste e01 from the Coffee Love kit,

or a foliage element of choice from the kit that you chose to use.

Arrange on the left side of the canvas.

Duplicate the element, mirror, flip,

and arrange the duplicate in a slightly different position than the original.

Merge the two foliage elements together.

Apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: -2, H: 2, Opacity: 65%, Blur: 12.00.

Rename this layer Foliage 1.

Copy and paste e36 from the Coffee Love kit,

or another foliage element of choice from the kit that you chose.

Arrange on the right side of the canvas.

Duplicate the element, mirror, flip,

and arrange the duplicate in a slightly different position than the original.

Merge the two foliage elements together.

Apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: -2, H: 2, Opacity: 65%, Blur: 12.00.

Rename this layer Foliage 2.

Copy and paste e19 from the Coffee Love kit,

or swirl element of choice from the kit that you chose.

Resize by 45%, all layers unchecked.

Arrange on the bottom right side of the canvas.

Duplicate the element, mirror, flip,

and arrange the duplicate in a slightly different position than the original.

Merge the two swirl elements together.

Apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: -2, H: 2, Opacity: 65%, Blur: 12.00.

Rename this layer Swirl 1.

Copy and paste e23 from the Coffee Love kit,

or a ribbon element of choice from the kit that you chose.

Arrange on the right side of the canvas.

Duplicate the element, mirror, flip,

and arrange the duplicate in a slightly different position than the original.

Merge the two ribbon elements together.

Apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: -2, H: 2, Opacity: 65%, Blur: 12.00.

Rename this layer Ribbon 1.

Copy and paste e34 from the Coffee Love kit,

or a butterfly element of choice from the kit that you chose.

Arrange on the right side of the canvas.

Apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: -2, H: 2, Opacity: 65%, Blur: 12.00.

Rename this layer Butterfly 1.

Copy and paste e39 from the Coffee Love kit,

or another swirl element of choice from the kit that you chose.

Arrange on the bottom half of the canvas.

Apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: -2, H: 2, Opacity: 65%, Blur: 12.00.

Rename this layer Swirl 2.

Copy and paste e33 from the Coffee Love kit,

or another foliage element of choice from the kit that you chose.

Resize by 50%, all layers unchecked.

Arrange in the bottom left corner of the canvas.

Duplicate the element, and then flip it.

Merge the two foliage elements together.

Duplicate the new layer, mirror it on the canvas

and arrange the duplicate in a slightly different position than the original.

Merge the two foliage elements together.

Apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: -2, H: 2, Opacity: 65%, Blur: 12.00.

Rename this layer Foliage 3.

Copy and paste e05 from the Coffee Love kit,

or a floral element of choice from the kit that you chose.

Arrange on the left side of the canvas.

Duplicate the element, mirror, flip,

and arrange the duplicate in a slightly different position than the original.

Merge the two floral elements together.

Apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: -2, H: 2, Opacity: 65%, Blur: 12.00.

Rename this layer Floral 1.

Copy and paste e14 from the Coffee Love kit,

or another floral element of choice from the kit that you chose.

Arrange on the bottom left side of the canvas.

Apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: -2, H: 2, Opacity: 65%, Blur: 12.00.

Rename this layer Floral 2.

Copy and paste e29 from the Coffee Love kit,

or a jeweled/butterfly element of choice from the kit that you chose.

Arrange on the left side of the canvas.

Apply a drop shadow of choice,

or the one I used with the following settings:

V: -2, H: 2, Opacity: 65%, Blur: 12.00.

Rename this layer Butterfly 2,

or a name appropriate for the type of element you chose.

Arrange the Butterfly 2 layer in your layer palette,

so that it is just above the Foliage 3 layer.

Open another paper of choice.

I used pp07 from the Coffee Love Kit.

Copy and paste as a new layer at the top of your layer palette.

Selections – Select All – Clip to Canvas.

Image – Crop to Selection.

Selections – Select All.

Contract by 5 pixels.

Hit delete on your keyboard once.

Selections – Select None.

Rename this layer Frame.

Duplicate the frame layer.

On the original:

Adjust – Brightness and Contrast – Brightness/Contrast with the following settings:

Brightness: -255, Contrast: 0.

Adjust – Blur – Gaussian Blur at 5.50.

Merge the two frame layers together.

Rename this new layer Frame, if needed.

Copy and paste your tube of choice as a new layer below the frame layer.

Resize as needed, and arrange in the center of your canvas.

Rename this layer Tube Shadow.

Duplicate the Tube Shadow layer.

Rename this layer Tube.

On the Tube Shadow layer,

Adjust – Brightness and Contrast – Brightness/Contrast with the following settings:

Brightness: -255, Contrast: 0.

Adjust – Blur – Gaussian Blur at 7.50.

Hide the Frame layer.

Edit – Copy Special – Copy Merged.

Paste as a new layer above the Tube layer, but below the Frame layer.

Adjust – Blur – Gaussian Blur at 7.00.

Change the settings of this layer to Hard Light,

or one that is appropriate for your tag.

Lower the Opacity to 50%.

Rename this layer Tag Blur.

Hide the Frame, Tag Blur, Tube, and Tube Shadow layers.

Edit – Copy Special – Copy Merged.

Paste as a new image to work on the avatar later.

Choose a pixel font of choice,

add your credits, license, and tagger’s mark.

Choose a font of choice or use Lavanderia Regular.

Foreground null and background a color of choice.

Add your name.

When happy with the placement and size, convert to raster layer.

Duplicate the name layer.

On the duplicate name layer,

Apply Lokas Artistic Effects – Cotton with the default settings.

On the original name layer,

apply a medium 3.00 thick gradient glow in a complimentary color.

Apply the same drop shadow as used previously.

Save as a .JPG, and you’re done with the tag portion of this tutorial!

Onwards to the avatar, which is entirely optional.

Open up a 150x150 canvas.

Copy and paste the background layer that we created earlier.

Arrange the portion of the background you would like for your avatar.

Open another paper of choice.

I used pp07 from the Coffee Love Kit.

Copy and paste as a new layer at the top of your layer palette.

Selections – Select All – Clip to Canvas.

Image – Crop to Selection.

Selections – Select All.

Contract by 5 pixels.

Hit delete on your keyboard once.

Selections – Select None.

Rename this layer Frame.

Duplicate the frame layer.

On the original:

Adjust – Brightness and Contrast – Brightness/Contrast with the following settings:

Brightness: -255, Contrast: 0.

Adjust – Blur – Gaussian Blur at 5.50.

Merge the two frame layers together.

Rename this new layer Frame, if needed.

Duplicate the background layer.

Adjust – Blur – Gaussian Blur at 7.00.

Change the settings of this layer to Hard Light,

or the same setting used on your tag.

Lower the Opacity to 50%.

Choose a pixel font of choice,

add your credits, license, and tagger’s mark.

Choose a font of choice or use Lavanderia Regular.

Foreground null and background a color of choice.

Add your initial.

When happy with the placement and size, convert to raster layer.

Duplicate the initial layer.

On the duplicate layer,

Apply Lokas Artistic Effects – Cotton with the default settings.

On the original layer,

apply a medium 3.00 thick gradient glow in a complimentary color.

Apply the same drop shadow as used previously.

Save as a .JPG, and you’re done!

Thank you so much for trying my tutorial,

I’d love to see your results!